I live in Europe. I walk its streets, I sit in its cafés, I breathe in the air of its ancient cities—and I see it slipping. I see a continent that once ignited the engines of the world now struggling to keep pace. The echoes of its greatness linger in the stones of its cathedrals, in the cobbled pathways of its old towns, in the whispers of its libraries. But the fire that once set the world ablaze is now a flickering ember, gasping for air under layers of hesitation and decay.
We have become observers, not architects. Spectators, not pioneers. The technological revolutions shaping the future are not born here. They arrive on our shores, polished, and perfected elsewhere, while we stand by, watching with a mix of admiration and envy—like ageing nobles in a crumbling castle, raising our glasses to a past no one else remembers.
Europe stands at a crossroads. Hell, Europe laid the foundation for the modern world, only to now stand by as others pave over it. The United States, the world’s self-proclaimed engine of innovation, built its empire on stolen European blueprints—our science, our philosophy, our industrial revolution. And today? They’re still at it. Their tech giants mine our best minds, their venture capitalists feast on ideas that should have been born, bred, and scaled right here. They build a trillion-dollar future on the dust of Europe’s past glory, while we drown in committees and paperwork, endlessly discussing what should have been done yesterday.
The world does not wait. The United States moves with the reckless energy of a gambler who plays to win. China builds, patents, and expands with the single-minded force of an empire bent on dominion. Meanwhile, Europe debates. We analyse, regulate, and revise until the moment of action has passed. And then we ask: why have we fallen behind?
It is time for a reckoning.
Innovation is not an intellectual exercise—it is war. It is a battle against inertia, against fear, against the small-minded voices that whisper, “But what if it fails?” Failure is inevitable. Fear is irrelevant. The only real risk is stagnation, and Europe has been bathing in it for too long.
To innovate, we must reclaim our appetite for boldness. Our policies must not coddle mediocrity but reward risk. This means dismantling the bureaucratic monstrosities that suffocate new ideas before they take their first breath. It means rejecting the comforting lull of subsidies that sustain the weak and punish the strong. It means giving power back to the inventors, the disruptors, the unreasonable minds who refuse to accept the world as it is.
We must learn to love discomfort. Progress has never emerged from the complacent. The great breakthroughs—the printing press, the steam engine, the internet—did not come from committee meetings and compliance checklists. They came from individuals who saw beyond the horizon and refused to wait for permission.
The digital revolution is here, but Europe still acts as if it is a guest rather than a host. We do not need another round of cautionary reports about AI ethics while the rest of the world builds. We do not need another decade of timid “frameworks” for tech investment while Silicon Valley and Shenzhen outpace us. We need action. We need to build, test, and deploy—not just discuss. We need leaders who understand that innovation is not a department, it is the foundation of sovereignty.
This is not a matter of economic competitiveness alone; it is a matter of survival. A Europe that does not innovate is a Europe that is controlled by those who do. And make no mistake, the world is governed by those who create. The future will not be decided in boardrooms but in laboratories, in code, in ideas that break the mould of what we once thought possible.
Education must be a forge, not a museum. We should not just teach students what has been done; we must teach them to think, to challenge, to build. European universities must be engines of disruption, not just repositories of knowledge. Our brightest minds should not have to cross oceans to turn ideas into reality. We must create an ecosystem that does not merely admire genius but unleashes it.
The union must stop suffocating entrepreneurs with regulations designed to mitigate every risk. Risk is the soil in which innovation grows. For every rule designed to “protect” against failure, we strip another daring mind of the chance to create. Instead of fearing failure, we must foster a culture that understands it as the cost of invention.
Europe must take ownership of its digital future. AI, quantum computing, biotech—these are not distant concerns; they are the battlefield of the modern world. We should be shaping global standards, not playing catch-up. If we want to lead, we need investment, not just in startups, but in vision. We need policies that don’t just keep up with change but anticipate it, fuel it, accelerate it.
And beyond money and policy, we need something deeper: a shift in spirit. The culture of permission-seeking must die. The era of waiting for validation from outdated institutions must end. We need to think faster, act bolder, and embrace risk as the price of progress.
To those in power: make way for the thinkers and the builders. Strip away the barriers that protect the comfortable at the expense of the brilliant. Incentivize risk, not safety. To the entrepreneurs, the scientists, the inventors: do not wait for Europe to give you permission. Take it. Build. Create. Force the system to catch up with you.
This is our moment. Europe can lead or it can be led. The choice is ours. The time is now.
